Agri dept aims at providing 25,000 farm machineries at affordable prices

Kolkata: The state Agriculture department has started receiving online applications under its flagship scheme of farm mechanisation for the current year with a target of providing 25000 farm machineries at affordable prices and offering financial assistance upto 60 per cent of purchase cost.

An allocation of Rs 110 crore has been made to extend financial assistance to selected beneficiaries for the

purchase of farm machineries under the scheme.

The department has issued a public notification inviting online applications from interested farmers, agri-entrepreneurs, FPOs/ PACS to avail financial assistance for purchase of modern farm machineries, agricultural implements and setting up of oil mills, dal (pulse) mills, solar pumps and Custom Hiring Centre (CHC).

Applications can be submitted online at https://matirkatha.net portal till September 25. Interested applicants can also seek assistance from the Assistant Director of Agriculture offices at Blocks/Bangla Sahayata Kendra (BSK) for submission of applications.

All the applications submitted within the last date will be screened at block level and are expected to be accorded approvals by District Level Sanctioning Committee under the chairmanship of District Magistrates within a month thereafter.

All the processes, approvals and settlement of assistance under the scheme are done using the schematic portal.

The State Farm Mechanisation scheme was launched in 2012-13 by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

Since its inception, a total of 4.90 lakh machineries have been distributed so far with a subsidy amount of Rs 830 crore. Under the scheme, one time assistance (OTA) of 50 per cent of the cost of purchase is provided to the selected beneficiary for the purchase of manually-operated farm implements like prayers, paddle threshers, chaff cutters, subject to maximum of Rs 10,000.

For power operated machineries like solar pumps, rice transplanter, power tiller, maize threshers, agricultural drones, multi crop threshers, mini oil mills, dal mills and power sprayers, financial assistance of 50-60 per cent of cost of purchase subject to maximum of Rs 3 lakh is released to selected beneficiary account by DBT(direct benefit transfer).

The scheme also provides a bank linked subsidy up to 40 per cent of project cost for setting up of CHC as common facilities offering machinery to farmers on rental basis.

This year, setting up of farm machinery hubs by FPOs, PACS, SHGs at Gram Panchayat level with subsidy of 80 per cent of project cost up to Rs 10 lakh is also being promoted.